Brian Naylor

Allison Shelley
/ NPR

NPR News' Brian Naylor is a correspondent on the Washington Desk.

In this role, he covers politics and federal agencies, including transportation and homeland security.

With more than 30 years of experience at NPR, Naylor has served as National Desk correspondent, White House correspondent, congressional correspondent, foreign correspondent and newscaster during All Things Considered. He has filled in as host on many NPR programs, including Morning Edition, Weekend Edition and Talk of the Nation.

During his NPR career, Naylor has covered many of the major world events, including political conventions, the Olympics, the White House, Congress and the mid-Atlantic region. Naylor reported from Tokyo in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, from New Orleans following the BP oil spill, and from West Virginia after the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine.

While covering the U.S. Congress in the mid-1990s, Naylor's reporting contributed to NPR's 1996 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Journalism award for political reporting.

Before coming to NPR in 1982, Naylor worked at NPR Member Station WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and at a commercial radio station in Maine.

The Senate is expected to vote Saturday on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh and — barring a major unforeseen development — in all likelihood, he will be confirmed by the narrowest of margins.

Wednesday afternoon, at exactly 2:18 p.m. ET, million of Americans received a text headlined "Presidential Alert" on their cellphones.

But it wasn't exactly from President Trump. Rather, it was a test of a new nationwide warning system that a president could use in case of an armed attack by another country, a cyberattack or a widespread natural disaster.

The thought that Donald Trump may have been totally unprepared to become president in November 2016 is one that's not new to those who have been following the day-to-day crises and dramas of the Trump White House closely.

But a case for this argument is revealingly and startlingly made by Michael Lewis in his fascinating — and at times harrowing — new book The Fifth Risk.

Across the country, Americans were transfixed Thursday by television coverage of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh as they testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford spoke of her allegation that the Supreme Court nominee had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers in 1982. Kavanaugh vehemently denied it.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with the American public, are hearing, for the first time, on Thursday directly from Christine Blasey Ford, the university professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were both teenagers in high school.

President Trump attacked Brett Kavanaugh's second accuser Tuesday, saying she "has nothing" on the Supreme Court nominee and was "totally inebriated and all messed up" during a college party at which, she said, Kavanaugh exposed himself to her.

Trump, at a photo op during his visit to the United Nations, said the accusations were part of a "con game being played by Democrats."

Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh says he isn't considering withdrawing following more allegations of sexual misconduct from decades ago, and he proclaimed his innocence in a new TV interview Monday evening.

"I'm not going to let false accusations drive us out of this process," Kavanaugh told Fox News' Martha MacCallum in an interview alongside his wife, Ashley.

Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were in high school, rejected an ultimatum given by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

President Trump says he hopes the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her will appear at a hearing next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Speaking to reporters as he left the White House for a trip to visit flood damage in North Carolina, Trump said he "really wants to see" Christine Blasey Ford testify on Monday. "If she shows up and makes a credible showing," Trump said, referring to Ford, "that'll be very interesting, and we'll have to make a decision."

FEMA is rolling out a new tool as it begins to deal with now-tropical storm Florence. It's a rumor-control webpage.

Unfounded rumors — what might be called "fake news" — have been a problem in coping with recent disasters, according to Gary Webb, a professor and chair of emergency management and disaster science at the University of North Texas.

"Disasters do create a great deal of uncertainty, confusion and anxiety," Webb said, "and, as a result, there is the potential for rumors to propagate."

As Hurricane Florence makes landfall in the Carolinas, in Washington the focus is how the Trump administration will respond to the storm's aftermath, and the inevitable property damage, power outages and potential loss of life.

The federal response is coordinated by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency's reputation suffered last year following its lagging response to Hurricane Maria. And while President Trump and FEMA officials insist they're ready this time, there have already been missteps that have some believing the agency's confidence may be misplaced.

There were somber ceremonies in New York City, in Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon on Tuesday as President Trump, along with survivors and families of those killed on this date, remembered Sept. 11, 17 years after the terrorist attack.

Trump, speaking at the Flight 93 National Memorial, said, "A piece of America's heart is buried in these grounds, but in its place has grown a new resolve to live our lives with the same grace and courage as the heroes of Flight 93."

President Trump wants to cancel an automatic pay raise set to take effect next year for federal civilian workers.

Federal workers were to get a 2.1 percent across-the-board raise in January, with more for those who live in high-cost areas. But in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday, Trump wrote, "We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases."

John McCain will be memorialized by past presidents and Senate colleagues from both political parties in Arizona and Washington, D.C., this week. Notably absent from the list of dignitaries who will pay tribute to the two-time presidential candidate, six-term senator and Vietnam War hero is President Trump.

Trump and McCain clashed almost from the moment Trump entered the 2016 presidential contest. Vice President Pence will represent the Trump administration at McCain's services.

President Trump denied a CNN report that he knew in advance that his son Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign officials planned to meet with a group of Russians in June 2016 who said they had dirt on 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

In a tweet Friday morning, Trump wrote "I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don Jr."

Nestled in the foot hills of the Blue Ridge mountains near Shenandoah National Park, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has an academy for dogs.

At this peaceful — except for the barking — and in the ATF's term, "pristine" setting, agents train the animals to detect explosives and chemical accelerants used in arson cases.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. watched during a recent exhibition at the facility, as the dogs ran around a large gymnasium-like room, with metal cans and suitcases, some of them with traces of explosives, on the floor.

President Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday that they have agreed to work toward removing all trade barriers between the two sides.

In a Rose Garden announcement, Trump said the EU had also agreed to buy U.S. soybeans, a day after he announced a $12 billion bailout package for farmers hit by retaliatory tariffs. Trump said the EU will also become a "massive buyer" of U.S. liquefied natural gas.

President Trump lashed out at his former lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday after Cohen released a tape on which the two discuss buying the story of a woman who said she had an affair with Trump. His current lawyer denies that payment took place.